After leaking 12 goals in three games, Birmingham finally stopped the bleeding to take an unlikely point from the champions, leaving co-owner David Sullivan feeling sheepish for questioning his players' commitment and Chelsea looking a pale shadow of the Liverpool team who hit seven here in the FA Cup.

Before Sir Alex Ferguson gets too excited, though, he should check the video. Chelsea had at least seven clear chances, had a goal controversially disallowed in the second half and on another day would probably have won at a canter. It was simply one of those days when the ball would not go in and when it did, Jose Mourinho was adamant that an early offside flag had cost Asier Del Horno a winning goal.

'Let me say first that I thought the result was fair,' Mourinho said. 'Birmingham fought for 90 minutes and they fought hard. They deserved a point. No complaints about that. But what I also have to say is that we had a clear goal disallowed. The linesman put his flag up before the ball arrived in the box. I am sorry, but we were denied a good goal.'

Good old Jose. This would have been the dullest of goalless stalemates but for the usual Chelsea controversy. Mourinho's players were on their best behaviour throughout the 90 minutes - no hint of diving or handling in a well-mannered game that passed without a single booking. In a spirit of glasnost, the Chelsea manager even turned up to the post-match press conference, only to be accused of moaning all the time.

'It's you who do that,' he replied. 'When we beat Newcastle we ended up talking about a red card in the final minute that made no difference to the result. Last week it was a handball in a win against Manchester City. You never want to speak about football. I hear other managers talking about our players diving when they have players of their own who do it. Everything is ridiculous to me.'

Funny he should say that because ridiculous was exactly what Steve Bruce thought of the idea that Del Horno's goal should have counted. As Arjen Robben prepared to send in a free-kick from the right, Ricardo Carvalho took up an offside position at the far post.

As the ball came over, he moved back onside and challenged for a header, failing to make contact and seeing the ball turned into the goal via Del Horno's outstretched leg. Mourinho's complaint seemed to be that the flag had gone up too early and the referee's assistant should have waited to see whether Carvalho played the ball. Because he ended up jumping for a header in front of goal, however, it was hard to see how he could not have been interfering with play.

'He became active as soon as he challenged for the ball,' Andy Garratt, the referee's assistant in question, said afterwards.

Bruce said: 'We've got a grey area now where once we had a rule that everyone understood. But he can't say he's inactive and then challenge for the ball. That's a nonsense.'

So Mourinho was wrong and he does moan a lot, but he provides good copy, too. 'We've been dropping a few points away from home, but all we have to do to be champions is to win our three remaining home games,' he predicted. Manchester United are at Stamford Bridge on 29 April.

The actual game did not amount to much compared with the entertainment in the press conference. Birmingham started brightly, with Emile Heskey going through his repertoire of fluffed chances and Olivier Tebily coming closest to scoring with a 25-yard drive that Petr Cech was understandably not expecting. Chelsea hit back, with Robben and Damien Duff producing saves from Maik Taylor, although their game got going only after Hernan Crespo and Joe Cole came on in the second half and the visiting team switched to a bold 3-4-3 formation.

Chelsea could afford to sacrifice a defender because Birmingham had all too clearly run out of steam up front, yet although Duff, too, had a goal disallowed, Didier Drogba twice went close and Crespo could have had a hat-trick in the closing minutes, the home team's luck held.

'We've been battered from pillar to post in the last 10 days. I was just looking for a response today and I got it,' a relieved Bruce said. 'Technically we didn't always do the right thing, but we matched them. If we can do the same with our game in hand against Bolton on Tuesday we've got a great chance of getting out of the bottom three.'

MAN OF THE MATCH:: OLIVIER TEBILY A rare start in a hastily reorganised defence, but a surprisingly accomplished performance. Defensively sound whether dealing with Duff or Robben and brought the crowd to their feet with an early shot.